Project Syndicate - NEW YORK – The violence in Congo is unspeakable. But, if the horror of Congo’s recent wars – which have killed more people than any war since World War II – is to end, the unspeakable must be spoken.

Across the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, government soldiers, members of renegade government military units, and myriad militias are gang raping untold thousands of women. They are making sex slaves of some women, branding some victims like cattle, and maiming and mutilating women and girls, some as young as three years old, by destroying their vaginas and other internal organs.

Sometimes, the gunmen force their victims’ fathers, brothers, and husbands to rape them, or the women to eat the flesh of their murdered relatives. Afterward, many of the women find themselves utterly alone as they suffer the physical and psychological effects of trauma and cope with destitution, unwanted pregnancies and children, HIV/AIDS, and ostracism by their loved ones who shun them as “diseased” or “tainted.”

Who are these killers and rapists, these men who have committed appalling crimes for more than a decade with complete impunity? Many are the so-called “genocidaires” who fled from Rwanda into Congo after participating in the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis in 1994. Others are Rwandan rebels and members of Congo’s army. Still others are men and boys recruited and press-ganged into militia units.

Violence has displaced more than 350,000 people in eastern Congo since the beginning of 2007. Recently, thousands more fled fresh outbreaks of fighting between local militias and supporters of Laurent Nkunda, a renegade general of Congo’s army, who has rejected a call to begin disarming his troops. A United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in eastern Congo was supposed to have protected the region’s civilians; the peacekeeping force’s failure to safeguard the women has gone unremarked, in part, because a veil of silence surrounds what is occurring.

Women in the eastern Congo have no say in the decision-making that drives the conflict consuming so many of their lives. They have no access to political and economic power in a society that considers them of scant value.

Congo’s government has undertaken no significant effort to bring those responsible for these gender atrocities to justice; new laws have paid lip service to sexual violence, but no one has been prosecuted. The international community, too, has failed. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, which is investigating the crimes in eastern Congo, has only this week indicted the first Congolese militia commander for gender-based crimes.

It is Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s duty to speak up, to take a leadership role, to bring this situation before the Security Council, call for it to meet in a special session, and urge it to take effective action immediately. Thousand more peacekeepers – let many of them be women – must be deployed in the affected provinces.

The Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Ocampo Moreno, should be urged to accelerate his investigations and, once the evidence is sufficient, bring charges against those who have committed these crimes or failed to discipline or prosecute the perpetrators. The local authorities should be assisted in efforts to pursue, arrest, and prosecute accused perpetrators before new local tribunals that enjoy significant prosecutorial and police powers. Support should be given to courageous local women’s groups that are providing care to the victims. Medical and other assistance is needed to treat the overwhelming numbers of victims.

If the people with the power to end the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo maintain their silence and continue to do nothing, the perpetrators will grow only bolder in their destruction of women’s lives. When impunity for unspeakable acts goes unchallenged, those acts become even more unspeakable.

Maryam Elahi is chair of the International Human Rights Committee of the American Bar Association and director of the International Women’s Program at the Open Society Institute in NY.

An official source at the Yemenia Airways has denied rumors released in some news websites on the detention of one of the company's aircrafts by the Comorian airport authorities.

The Plane arrived to Sana'a International Airport at 11:30 pm after it took off at 12:45 am from Sana'a and headed to Djibouti and from there to Moroni, where it stopped there for fifty minutes to drop off and pick up passengers.

Egypt has said the future of Yemen would be determined by consensus among the various political parties and without imposing any party his opinion on others by force.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry emphasized the importance of all Yemeni political parties' commitment to continue the political dialogue under the sponsorship of the UN and on the basis of the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanisms, outputs of the National Dialogue Conference (NDC), the Peace and Partnership agreement as well as the Security Council's relevant resolutions, as it is the only way to resolve the country's current crisis.

The Executive Unit to manage camps of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) organized on Thursday a workshop on the announcement of stopping food aid for IDPs and finding other projects in their return areas.

The workshop aimed to educate the IDPs on halting the monthly food rations they were receiving from the UNHCR and international organizations, especially after the war had stopped in Abyan and Saada provinces and they can now return to their homes.

Ahmad al-Kohlani, head of the executive unit, praised the international organizations' role in helping IDPs throughout their displacement period through offering food aid and health and educational services.

The UNHCR spokeswoman confirmed that donors halted providing their aid after the return of IDPs to their homes from the displacement areas.

The internal displacement is one of large and complex issues and should be addressed by the Yemeni government with the support of UNHCR and other international organizations, she added.

The UN Security Council adopted on Tuesday a unanimous Resolution No. (2204) extending sanctions on individuals and entities involved in acts threatening peace, security and stability in Yemen which reflects

The First Military Region's commander Abdulrahman al-Halili survived an assassination attempt, a military source said on Monday.

One of the commander's guards was killed and six others injured when a bomb planted at roadside exploded targeting his motorcade in al-Qatan district in Hadramout province, the Defense Ministry's website quoted the military source as saying.

The General Secretariat of the Arab League said the latest developments in Yemen will be discussed within the agenda of the 143rd session of the League's Ministerial Council next month.

"It was agreed to discuss the latest developments in Yemen within the agenda of the regular session of the Arab League Council at the level of Arab foreign ministers to be held in March 09 - 10 in Cairo", Arab League's Deputy Secretary-General Ambassador Ahmed Ben Helli said in a press statement on Sunday.

The UN Secretary General Advisor on Yemen Affairs Jamal Benomar has announced that the political parties reached progress in the dialogue in preparation for a comprehensive dialogue.

Benomar said that the political powers had agreed on the form of the legislative power for the transitional period to ensure participation of all components which were not included in the current parliament.

Russia called on Thursday Yemen's political parties to work as hard as possible to reach an agreement of the current impasse in Yemen.

All political powers did not relinquish the dialogue on forming new State's institutions, despite continuing the current crisis in Yemen," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.

He urged all political parties to speed up negotiations and show maximum flexibility in order to reach a settlement and implement the Security Council resolution 2201.

The Arab Parliament affirmed its absolute rejection of any foreign interference in Yemen internal affairs, warning that that will lead to the aggravation of the situation in the country.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Arab Parliament called on all Yemeni political parties to quickly reach a peaceful solution to the current impasse to maintain Yemen's unity and its territorial integrity.